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I can't stress this enough: Use FastMail (and pay for it), it's better than GMail and doesn't pull this kind of shit on you. The post is very alarming, but at l

I can't stress this enough: Use FastMail (and pay for it), it's better than GMail and doesn't pull this kind of shit on you. The post is very alarming, but at least you have a better option when it comes to arguably the most important part of Google, your email. It's super cheap (I prepaid for two years or something and it came out to less than $3/mo), faster than Gmail and won't kill your life. EDIT: I hear Protonmail is also good, just use one of the two. They're great.

phyzome 7y ago
Can confirm, I use Fastmail and it is very nice. (Protonmail looks reasonable and popular as well, but I have no direct experience with it.)
Doctor_Fegg 7y ago
Runbox is good too.
dmak 7y ago
It's not easy to just switch. I have a lot of services tied to my Google account including drive documents.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  You don't have to switch all of them at once, switching your email is pretty easy.
zirror 7y ago
Tutanota is also pretty good. Protonmail was also pretty great. (I used them both, currently at Tutanota)
- aeonian 7y ago
  +1 for Tutanota. Recently switched. It's a breeze to use and far more reliable than I ever found my previous email provider to be.
pmlnr 7y ago
- google pay - google maps These are the two things I find more or less impossible to replace on android. For Pay, there is no alternative at all. For Maps, there is Osmand, which is good as static map, but not for finding addresses.
- jraph 7y ago
  Maps.me (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) seems a bit better for finding addresses
- lucb1e 7y ago
  Google Maps' map data can be replaced by Microsoft/Here/TomTom data, or OSM-based maps (OsmAnd, maps.me). Apple Maps seems to be unavailable outside of iOS, not even through third-party apps or a website, as far as I know. Mapbox does realtime traffic these days, https://benmaps.fr https://benmaps.fr can show this layer (I haven't found that button in mobile view though, might need to do a pull request), as well as your local traffic authority probably or some other local companies. Business info can be found through regular search engines, or if that is really difficult, then you can always fall back to google maps every once in a while. Street view is not available where I live anyway, and Mapillary is doing reasonably. They also have OsmAnd integration. OpenStreetCam is another alternative. Satellite imagery is not exclusive to google maps either, there are lots of sources for this, and often also plane-shot imagery from your local government. You can configure a layer in OsmAnd. Personally I use Bing Maps most frequently for this (not the app, just bing.com/maps) since it is a lot more smooth/lightweight than the awfully heavy google maps website. (I don't really use sat imagery on mobile anyway.) Trip recording ("location history" in google) can be done with OsmAnd or many other apps as well. I configured it to automatically turn on when routing: then I have GPS on anyway and I might as well store the data. Often fun to see stats afterwards (max speed, avg speed, asc/descend, or sometimes it's practical to see the time it took). I think that should cover the functionality of google maps. Google pay I never heard of, unless you mean paying for apps in the Play Store, in which case the solution is to contact the developers directly, though they usually don't seem to care enough to get you as a customer (I tried this four times, never got a reply, thus never became a customer since quitting google play). Hope this helps!
rcurry 7y ago
This. If you want to be respected, use a service provider that values your business. Google ain't one of them.
catacombs 7y ago
Fastmail isn't as privacy-safe as other alternatives. I used Fastmail for a while and recently switched to mailfence.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  In what way?
  - Macha 7y ago
    Australian laws allowing the government to compel backdoors
    - joecool1029 7y ago
      I weighed this for awhile because it was a concern for me. I finally did end up moving my organization off Google Suite to Fastmail and I haven't looked back. Australia's government sucks ass, yes. But Fastmail seems focused on its product and has been conveying their positions and opposition to such legislation. Google does not do this, they run Google Suite like it's an automated hobby project. I'm quite certain that it's more likely that our data with Google would be used to provide data sets that could be used for advertising or sold/adapted to state surveillance (sensorvault anyone?). Even if it wasn't, we're still worse off when they arbitrarily suspend accounts and only provide us with outsourced customer service lacking an escalation path that only takes calls overnight. Fastmail wrote a blog post about the law: https://fastmail.blog/2018/09/10/access-and-assistance-bill/ https://fastmail.blog/2018/09/10/access-and-assistance-bill/
stilley2 7y ago
Seconded. Fastmail's support is great. I had some issue trying to sync emails with my laptop that messed up all the dates on my email (I don't remember the details) and fastmail support told me what I was doing wrong and wrote a script to correct all the dates on their server. I was blown away.
tyrion 7y ago
I can also recommend posteo.de and mailbox.org Worth checking out imho
xeRTRex 7y ago
I have been using ProtonMail for a year now and am very happy with the service.
lawn 7y ago
Also use your own domain. Even if your email provider shuts down or shuts you out, you'll still have access to your domain.
- StavrosK 7y ago
  Yes, this is very important.
- MockObject 7y ago
  Unless the domain was purchased using Google Domains? Then what happens if the owner's Google account is killed?
  - nyuszika7h 7y ago
    Pretty sure Google would be required to allow you to transfer the domain to another registrar.
- NetOpWibby 7y ago
  I’ve been self-hosting my email (and for a handful of people) for two years now. Feels great.
carapace 7y ago
Shout out for Hushmail https://www.hushmail.com/ https://www.hushmail.com/ Happy user for many years now.
jedberg 7y ago
I'd like to, but none of the other services offer Priority Inbox. Even if they did, I've spent years training Gmail what is and is not spam. It's nearly perfect now. That would be super hard to replicate.
- nickflood 7y ago
  Outlook.com offers something very similar to priority inbox, and in my experience it works quite well from the get go. Not telling you it'll definitely work for you, but there is something similar out there.
  - jedberg 7y ago
    Sure but is that really any different than gmail? Both are free services. Also, I'd still have to retrain it.
anderspitman 7y ago
I recently started using Fastmail for a new project I'm working on. The web app might be the snappiest I've ever used. Way better than Gmail. Protonmail is painfully slow in comparison. I'm seriously considering switching everything to Fastmail, but there's always a ton a FUD about surveillance when comparing them to Protonmail. But there's always a lot of FUD thrown at Prontonmail, too. Hard to know how much is true.

phyzome 7y ago

Can confirm, I use Fastmail and it is very nice. (Protonmail looks reasonable and popular as well, but I have no direct experience with it.)

Doctor_Fegg 7y ago

Runbox is good too.

dmak 7y ago

It's not easy to just switch. I have a lot of services tied to my Google account including drive documents.

StavrosK 7y ago
You don't have to switch all of them at once, switching your email is pretty easy.

zirror 7y ago

Tutanota is also pretty good. Protonmail was also pretty great. (I used them both, currently at Tutanota)

aeonian 7y ago
+1 for Tutanota. Recently switched. It's a breeze to use and far more reliable than I ever found my previous email provider to be.

pmlnr 7y ago

- google pay - google maps These are the two things I find more or less impossible to replace on android. For Pay, there is no alternative at all. For Maps, there is Osmand, which is good as static map, but not for finding addresses.

jraph 7y ago
Maps.me (https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.axet.maps/) seems a bit better for finding addresses
lucb1e 7y ago
Google Maps' map data can be replaced by Microsoft/Here/TomTom data, or OSM-based maps (OsmAnd, maps.me). Apple Maps seems to be unavailable outside of iOS, not even through third-party apps or a website, as far as I know. Mapbox does realtime traffic these days, https://benmaps.fr https://benmaps.fr can show this layer (I haven't found that button in mobile view though, might need to do a pull request), as well as your local traffic authority probably or some other local companies. Business info can be found through regular search engines, or if that is really difficult, then you can always fall back to google maps every once in a while. Street view is not available where I live anyway, and Mapillary is doing reasonably. They also have OsmAnd integration. OpenStreetCam is another alternative. Satellite imagery is not exclusive to google maps either, there are lots of sources for this, and often also plane-shot imagery from your local government. You can configure a layer in OsmAnd. Personally I use Bing Maps most frequently for this (not the app, just bing.com/maps) since it is a lot more smooth/lightweight than the awfully heavy google maps website. (I don't really use sat imagery on mobile anyway.) Trip recording ("location history" in google) can be done with OsmAnd or many other apps as well. I configured it to automatically turn on when routing: then I have GPS on anyway and I might as well store the data. Often fun to see stats afterwards (max speed, avg speed, asc/descend, or sometimes it's practical to see the time it took). I think that should cover the functionality of google maps. Google pay I never heard of, unless you mean paying for apps in the Play Store, in which case the solution is to contact the developers directly, though they usually don't seem to care enough to get you as a customer (I tried this four times, never got a reply, thus never became a customer since quitting google play). Hope this helps!

rcurry 7y ago

This. If you want to be respected, use a service provider that values your business. Google ain't one of them.

catacombs 7y ago

Fastmail isn't as privacy-safe as other alternatives. I used Fastmail for a while and recently switched to mailfence.

StavrosK 7y ago
In what way?
- Macha 7y ago
  Australian laws allowing the government to compel backdoors
  - joecool1029 7y ago
    I weighed this for awhile because it was a concern for me. I finally did end up moving my organization off Google Suite to Fastmail and I haven't looked back. Australia's government sucks ass, yes. But Fastmail seems focused on its product and has been conveying their positions and opposition to such legislation. Google does not do this, they run Google Suite like it's an automated hobby project. I'm quite certain that it's more likely that our data with Google would be used to provide data sets that could be used for advertising or sold/adapted to state surveillance (sensorvault anyone?). Even if it wasn't, we're still worse off when they arbitrarily suspend accounts and only provide us with outsourced customer service lacking an escalation path that only takes calls overnight. Fastmail wrote a blog post about the law: https://fastmail.blog/2018/09/10/access-and-assistance-bill/ https://fastmail.blog/2018/09/10/access-and-assistance-bill/

stilley2 7y ago

Seconded. Fastmail's support is great. I had some issue trying to sync emails with my laptop that messed up all the dates on my email (I don't remember the details) and fastmail support told me what I was doing wrong and wrote a script to correct all the dates on their server. I was blown away.

tyrion 7y ago

I can also recommend posteo.de and mailbox.org Worth checking out imho

xeRTRex 7y ago

I have been using ProtonMail for a year now and am very happy with the service.

lawn 7y ago

Also use your own domain. Even if your email provider shuts down or shuts you out, you'll still have access to your domain.

StavrosK 7y ago
Yes, this is very important.
MockObject 7y ago
Unless the domain was purchased using Google Domains? Then what happens if the owner's Google account is killed?
- nyuszika7h 7y ago
  Pretty sure Google would be required to allow you to transfer the domain to another registrar.
NetOpWibby 7y ago
I’ve been self-hosting my email (and for a handful of people) for two years now. Feels great.

carapace 7y ago

Shout out for Hushmail https://www.hushmail.com/ https://www.hushmail.com/ Happy user for many years now.

jedberg 7y ago

I'd like to, but none of the other services offer Priority Inbox. Even if they did, I've spent years training Gmail what is and is not spam. It's nearly perfect now. That would be super hard to replicate.

nickflood 7y ago
Outlook.com offers something very similar to priority inbox, and in my experience it works quite well from the get go. Not telling you it'll definitely work for you, but there is something similar out there.
- jedberg 7y ago
  Sure but is that really any different than gmail? Both are free services. Also, I'd still have to retrain it.

anderspitman 7y ago

I recently started using Fastmail for a new project I'm working on. The web app might be the snappiest I've ever used. Way better than Gmail. Protonmail is painfully slow in comparison. I'm seriously considering switching everything to Fastmail, but there's always a ton a FUD about surveillance when comparing them to Protonmail. But there's always a lot of FUD thrown at Prontonmail, too. Hard to know how much is true.